Iran hearing Wed May 6th, curious witness list

[TayTay]

The Hearing is called:

ENGAGING IRAN:
OBSTACLES AND
OPPORTUNITIES

HEARING
before the

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Time: 9:30 A.M.
Place: 419 Dirksen Senate Building
Presiding: Senator Kerry


Witnesses:

Panel 1:
+The Honorable Robert M. Morgenthau
District Attorney,
New York County Former United States Attorney
for the Southern District of New York
New York, NY

+Mr. Adam Kaufman
Bureau Chief,
Investigation Division Central Office
of the District Attorney, New York County
New York, NY

Panel 2:

+The Honorable R. Nicholas Burns
Professor in the Practice of
Diplomacy and International Politics,
Harvard Kennedy School
Former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs
Cambridge, MA

Ah, riddle me this bat-fans? Why is the District Attorney for the City of New York testifying at a US Senate hearing on the opportunities and obstables inherent in dealing with Iran?

Some background is in order. From http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-02-18/columns/morgenthau-nails-wire-transfer-schemers-bloomberg-yawns/">The Village Voice, Feb 2009: (In as much as I have time to do this research. I can but get the merest hint of why this is, alas.) Mr. Morgenthau has been recovering money for the City of New York in scams. Looky, looky who he got money back from:

The rest of the bounty forked over to the city came from an even bigger score that the D.A.'s office made when it nailed a major British bank sneaking billions of dollars in Iranian funds into the U.S. in violation of federal prohibitions. The bank was helping its Iranian customers pay vendors with American dollars for such big-ticket items as oil field equipment. Some $321 million was routed this way to New York banks, while several billion more passed through city institutions on its way to other recipients.

Lloyds TSB Bank in London became so adept at this procedure that it even issued a manual to its clerks on how to do it. "What Lloyds was doing was physically stripping the identifiers of the originator off the wire transfers," said Dan Castleman, chief assistant district attorney. The bank would replace a name such as Bank Melli—the government-owned bank based in Tehran—with a neutral name that wouldn't trigger screening software used by New York banks.

Probers were unable to track most of what the Iranians were buying with the wire transfers, but some of what they could see raised other questions. In addition to heavy machinery for its oil industry, which is the world's fourth largest, Iran was also ordering centrifuges, according to Morgenthau. While these devices have innocent uses, they are also employed in the enrichment of uranium for nuclear weapons. Then there was an e-mail message that popped up during the probe that showed that an Iranian firm was buying some 30,000 tons of tungsten, a material with many applications, including the construction of missiles.

"It was enough to make all the refrigerators in the Middle East, or enough to build a heck of a lot of rockets," said Morgenthau.

The wire-transfer scheme emerged from yet another probe. This one was looking into suspicious money transfers between the Iranian government and the Iranian-run Alavi Foundation, which is based in an office building at 650 Fifth Avenue. The foundation owns the building together with another Iranian company, the Assa Corporation, which was the target of a federal forfeiture lawsuit filed last year. Just before Christmas, the FBI arrested the foundation's president for shredding documents that a grand jury wanted to look at.

So, ah, who else has been selling to Iran? How much international money is in this scam and who are the players? This could get real interesting.

[beachmom]

1. Ah, the old BCCI tricks. Will that hearing be aired on c-span3 as well?

I'm definitely looking to watch the newspaper hearing.

Actually, Kerry has a kick ass hearing day tomorrow, doesn't he?

[TayTay]

2. I don't know. Probably not.

I would bet they only air one hearing with Sen. Kerry on a given day. But the hearing will be live on the committee website and archived there as well.

Actually, we know that the SFRC hired investigators and that they have been looking into Iran's activities. This stuff that Morgenthau is testifying about is stuff we already know. I wonder what else is coming?

That plus Dr. Burns is testifying. I very much like and respect him and find him to be one of the few bright lights from the Bush Admin.

[beachmom]

3. They are replaying the Pirate hearing in the wee hours this morning.

I haven't seen that one yet.

I am not a fan of sitting in front of a computer for these hearings. With a TV, you can walk around, gets some stuff done while listening. But I did watch the War Powers hearing like that, so I CAN do it. I just prefer the big box for long video sessions.

[TayTay]

4. Put the audio on loud and listen to it

They don't have many visual aides at the SFRC hearings. See if that makes it easier to do.

I have to do that a lot. It is very, very difficult to sit and listen to a whole hearing. It often takes me hours to get a 90 minute hearing. I keep having to pause and rewind and such to catch what I missed due to phone calls and whatnot.

[Muttocracy]

5. interesting! nt

[BlueIris]

6. OT: Your sigline is awesome and you may consider it stolen.

I love Jane Goodall.

[Muttocracy]

10. I stole it from one of the daily quotes on this site

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/

It was probably under the rainforest tab. She is indeed inspiring.

I need it to remind myself sometimes!

[Inuca]

7. I thought that Burns

was still in a high position at State, seem to remember to have read/heard it somewhere shortly after the switch.

[karynnj]

8. Wow, nice research - this should be fascinating

It also does suggest the importance of the type of following the money Kerry has spoken of since the 1990s.

[karynnj]

9. CSPAN is livestreaming it

http://www.capitolhearings.org/

(on right side - click on the room number for the foreign relations committee

[karynnj]

11. Fox News has a weird story on it criticizing Kerry for saying Bush had an Iran regime change policy

Even claiming Burns disagreed, when in fact Burns' comment was that they moved away from it. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/06/kerry-prompts-debate-bush-policy-iran/

The strange part is that I was extremely happy to have some say point blank that this was not are policy - and that never happened under Bush. (I wanted to leave a comment - but I can't remember what I put as a username and their system sends only a new password and they won't give me a new one)

Now, they didn't cover any of the substance of the hearing - from either panel.

[beachmom]

12. C-SPAN aired the hearing in this morning in the wee hours. I taped

it and am looking forward to checking it out.

I guess in the end, I will always be going to the internet (and c-span) for Kerry hearings. I like to go right to the source and not rely on people who have an agenda. So this is actually a good argument for why newspapers are dying. Some of us don't like their filter on certain issues. At the top of the list: John Kerry. They don't get him.